Red Rose Black
by slack-jawed cheese hugger
Summary: His distorted-sounding chuckle bounced around the car's interior. "That's the King I know." //: Ichigo’s dad died, and they told his roommate, Hichigo, first. Now he has to get his King to believe him... Slight implied HichiIchi, AU, two-shot


**Category: **Bleach

**Title: **Red Rose Black

**Genre: **General

**Characters: **Ichigo K., Dark Ichigo (aka Hichigo Shirosaki)

**Word Count: **610

**Status: **In-progress

**Summary: **His distorted-sounding chuckle bounced around the car's interior. "That's the King I know." :: Ichigo's dad died, and they told his roommate first. Now Shirosaki has to get his King to believeImplied HichiIchi, AU two-shot

"Where were you all day?" Ichigo looked up as Shirosaki Hichigo, his roommate of six years, walked in, one arm full of papers, the other carrying his computer bag.

"Ahh, well…" Shiro put down the bag on the table, and set down the papers. "Legal stuff."

"What for?" Ichigo asked, frowning slightly as he chewed on the end of his pen, staring unseeingly at the makeup test he was doing for his college's English department. Suspicion colored his voice.

"Hm… I'll tell you later, okay? Right now you gotta work on that." Shiro, who had already graduated college, albeit just barely, with a degree in molecular physics ("They get t' look a' things mos' people don' see, ever, y'know?" had been his excuse the first time they had met, which Ichigo had dubiously swallowed at the time,) tapped the packet. His hand was quickly swatted away as Ichigo looked up.

"Tell me now." Shiro gave him an unbelieving expression. "Or I'm telling Kon about the skirt incident."

Rolling his eyes, Hichigo ran a tremulous hand through his hair and sighed like he was exhausted. "Fine. But yer not gonna like it."

"I have him on _speed dial_, Shiro." Ichigo picked up his cell phone from its place next to his textbook and pretended to dial.

"Yer…" Shiro closed his eyes, pressing his lips together until they were a fine line. "Your dad died yesterday. Car accident. Truck driver didn't see him tryin' ta turn th' corner." He lowered his voice, and sat down the chair he had pulled out, facing Ichigo. An unfamiliar look of concern he hadn't used since Ichigo had quit doing speed crossed his face. "They got there an' he was dead. Spinal cord snapped. Didn't feel it." He lowered his eyes out of respect. "'M sorry, aibou. Nothin' they could do."

Ichigo had frozen at the first sentence, but now he was smirking. "Ha ha, very funny. You can stop now, stupid, I know you're kidding."

"Not this time, aibou. Wish I was."

"Yes, you are."

Shiro leveled his cool gaze at his friend. "The guy I talked to said this mi' happen. Denial, he said." He got up and opened the refrigerator, pouring a glass of orange juice. He gave it to Ichigo. "Here. Yer doctor said you gotta take a double dosage of the anti-stress shit he's got ya on until he can seeya on Friday."

Ichigo downed the medications numbly, still staring at the other man, looking for any indication that he was messing with him. It didn't come.

"Oh! And he said t' give you this. You left it at his office." The nearly albino-white man fished around in his pocket before withdrawing a ducky eraser and placing it carefully in Ichigo's hand, folding his fingers closed over it so he didn't drop it.

"You're kidding," insisted Ichigo stubbornly, still staring at Hichigo, who had broken eye contact to stash the bottles of the prescription medicine in his bag. "And you don't trust me anymore."

"I still trust ya, King, they jus' tol' me t' be careful fer a while. Tha's all."

Ichigo sighed, suddenly sounding equally exhausted as Shiro did. "Some days I wonder if it was a good idea not to move out back when you were a drunk."

"I'm not any more, tho' am I? An' anyways, you were a drunk too back then."

"That means nothing, you sneaky bastard," Ichigo shot back. "Don't change the subject."

"Okay, fine, I was a drunk. A dirty, stinkin' drunk. But you gotta admit, you couldn't hold yer liquor at _all_," Shiro cajoled, glad that he had forgotten the subject, however temporarily.


End file.
